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Opposition MPs will get their chance to protest the Conservative omnibus budget bill, but it will not be the protracted struggle they were seeking.

House of Commons speaker Andrew Scheer delivers his ruling on amendments to the budget bill in Ottawa on Monday. (Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Joanna Smith and Les WhittingtonOttawa Bureau

Mon., June 11, 2012

OTTAWA—Opposition MPs will get their chance to protest sweeping legislative changes included in the massive Conservative budget bill, but it will not be the protracted struggle they were seeking despite promises to come bearing pyjamas.

The New Democrats, the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the Greens had between them proposed more than 1,000 amendments to the omnibus Bill C-38, but by early Monday afternoon, a potential marathon of voting had been reduced to no more than one 24-hour spin around the clock.

“I am fully aware of the extraordinary nature of the current situation,” Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer said in the preamble to his ruling on the opposition amendments.

Of the 871 amendments that were eventually deemed to be in order, Scheer’s ruling grouped them in such a way that MPs will vote on them a maximum of 159 times this week.

“There are few precedents to guide the Speaker in dealing with this type of situation,” said Scheer as he explained his difficulty in finding a way to balance all the competing interests of his colleagues.

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Reducing the number of votes to 159 — or fewer if by some small chance a dozen Conservative MPs fail to show up or fall asleep and some of the amendments pass — means the opposition will have about 24 hours, instead of days, to wear down the government.

“It still represents a very gruelling ordeal,” said Green party leader Elizabeth May, who hopes that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will throw in the towel and negotiate rather than have everyone spend the entire night at work.

The New Democrats, according to opposition House leader Nathan Cullen, are ready to bring their “jammies” and had a message for the Conservatives, too: “They’ll have to pack their jammies as well.”

If the message from Government House leader Peter Van Loan is anything to go by, the Conservatives are unlikely to bend.

“We’re going to win every vote and we’re going to get this budget passed before the summer,” Van Loan told reporters Monday afternoon.

The Conservatives stepped up their efforts to use their majority in the Commons to ensure the standoff over the budget bill does not stall other legislation.

Van Loan moved to add up to six hours to each workday — allowing the Commons to remain in session until midnight, if need be — in order to pass free-trade agreements with Panama and Jordan and the controversial Copyright Act.

“It’s the opposition parties that are playing political games, playing games with the process and making things look a little bit silly up here for our purposes as a government,” Van Loan said. “We’re providing a hardworking, productive and orderly approach to getting our legislation through.”

Cullen spelled out what he thinks that means.

“They’re going to ram through we don’t how many bills before this session rises,” said Cullen, who on Monday also raised a point of privilege that accuses the government of contempt for Parliament by withholding information about planned public service job cuts.

The earliest the voting could begin is Tuesday.

Opposition MPs say the bill, which will alter some 70 laws touching on everything from environmental assessment to Employment Insurance reform, goes far beyond the subject matter of budget legislation and is a way for the Conservatives to usher in controversial major social and economic changes without proper scrutiny.

“This is not the agenda the Conservatives campaigned on last year,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said Monday during question period in the Commons. “Is that why the Conservatives are trying so hard to make sure Canadians do not see what is in the budget?”

A severe reduction in the number of times MPs will say yea or nay this week was the second time that Scheer ruled in favour of the government on Monday, after he rejected an attempt in May to have budget implementation bill set aside because it is too broad in scope.

“Until such time as the House feels compelled to set new limits on omnibus legislation, as your Speaker, I must continue to be guided by current rules and practice,” Scheer said as he delivered his ruling.

Liberal Leader Bob Rae said it is time for MPs to discuss whether there should be limits on how omnibus bills are used.

“I think what the Speaker is saying is something that we’re all going to have to reflect on and that is if you want to change the rules, you’ve got to change the rules and that means Parliament getting together and doing that,” Rae told reporters following the ruling on Monday. “If we can’t do it under this government, we’ll have to find other ways to do it.”

The opposition parties want the government to break up the 425-page bill into separate chunks of legislation to allow for better scrutiny by MPs.

Among other things, it would change environmental protection rules, future Old Age Security eligibility, the Employment Insurance system, fisheries regulations and immigration procedures.

The legislation also ends the Fair Wages act, eliminates a CSIS watchdog and increases government scrutiny of political activities undertaken by environmental charities.

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